Computerworld – WASHINGTON — Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader who lost a primary bid Tuesday for re-election, was a reliable “yes” vote for increasing the H-1B visa cap.

Cantor lost to challenger David Brat, a professor at Randolph-Macon College with a Ph.D. in economics — and an opponent of the H-1B visa.

Brat’s victory doesn’t signal a reversal in bipartisan support in Congress for increasing the number of H-1B visas. Cantor saw the visa program as an area for bipartisan agreement, and he was on solid ground in saying so.

The Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill, approved last year, would more than double the H-1B cap, increasing it from 85,000 to 180,000 annually. … Few candidates in either party draw attention to the H-1B visa in their races. But Brat used the H-1B against Cantor.

In one statement, Brat wrote: “The Chamber wants low-skilled cheap labor; Mark Zuckerberg wants high-skilled cheap labor, but, at the end of the day, what they have in common is that they all want cheap labor and Eric Cantor wants to give it to them.”